


Not On The Spreadsheet

by FabulaRasa



Category: DCU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:25:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Batman and Green Lantern have an excellent arrangement: sex with no strings, to help them forget the people they really want.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not On The Spreadsheet

"Two basically gay dudes in love with two basically straight dudes," was how Hal put it to Bruce, who just made some scoffing noise and went back to his work.

His work being, at the moment, sucking Hal's cock like he was born to do it. "Oh Jesus fuck," Hal gasped, as Bruce apparently decided talking had gone on long enough, and deep throated him like he had never felt before. "You don't—oh God—want me to come now, do you?"

Bruce pulled off. "Would it make you stop talking?"

"I just—thought—maybe you—wanted to get fucked," he panted, as Bruce's throat took him again, but then there was just too much tight heat to think around, breathe around, and he was coming in Bruce's mouth, down Bruce's throat. "So like I was saying," he managed, as soon as brain function returned. "It's a perfect arrangement."

"There are things we don't talk about," Bruce growled. "Now shut up and suck me."

And that was about as tender as it got, the truth was. That was their relationship, right there. Though _relationship_ was stretching it. What they did was, they fucked when they needed it, and ignored each other when they didn't. When he couldn't take any more of seeing Barry's happiness with Iris, and when—this was guesswork on his part—Bruce couldn't take any more of seeing Clark with Diana, they would find themselves fucking each other's brains out, in Hal's apartment or some corner of the Watchtower. They were like some Taylor Swift song about pining for someone you couldn't ever have. 

"Who?" Bruce said when Hal made the analogy.

"Really? You've got God knows how many kids, and Taylor Swift is news to you?"

"I should point out they're boys."

"Ah hah! So you do know who she is."

"For God's sake," Bruce sighed, turning back to the monitors of the Watchtower. But Hal caught the small twist of his mouth in amusement.

"Made you smile," he said. Bruce's eye roll was invisible, behind the cowl, but nevertheless somehow audible. 

It was never all that frequent. It didn't get more frequent. It didn't get less frequent. It didn't get— 

"Are we on a _schedule_?" Hal asked one night. The afterglow had receded enough for him to reclaim some brain cells, and he was putting it together. "Seriously, do you have it like, marked on your calendar? Like every eleven-point-five days, must go get righteously fucked?"

Bruce just arched a brow at him. "Unbelievable," Hal muttered. "You do. I bet you have some excel spreadsheet of your life. Liquefied food intake every seven hours, jerk off from precisely 10:07 to 10:15 every night, take a shit at exactly 9:00 a.m. every day."

"Don't be crude," Bruce said.

"Seriously? You didn't object to my crudity when I just had my tongue up your asshole. Unless _fuck Hal yes don't stop oh God Hal yes yes yes_ was your—"

A pillow landed on his face, held down by a heavy hand, and Hal laughed and kicked and struggled and tossed the pillow off and managed to roll them so he was on top and below him was six feet of smirking Bat. Holy hell, Bats was being playful with him. 

He bent his head down and hovered for a kiss. It was slow, just a brush of lips and teeth. Bruce's eyes were inscrutable pools of. . . something. Once he had flown out of Thule Air Base, in Greenland. There was this lake, right by the airstrip—frozen, but not murky frozen, like any he had seen in the States. Frozen clear, frozen the color of the clouds and sky and the gray terns overhead. "Look at that," he had said to his wingman Dave. "It looks like a cloud came down and settled right in that valley, doesn't it?"

"I keep forgetting you were an English major," Dave had said. "Fag."

It had been said with a good-natured bump of his arm, and Hal had smiled. In the military, "fag" was every fourth word, and "faggot" every third—if you took it personally for a minute, you were done for. Besides, it wasn't like Dave ever knew the truth.

He buried his mouth in Bruce's, and Bruce's tongue met his. There was a hand on his back, stroking him.

Fucking Bruce wasn't like any sex he had ever had before. For one thing, it was goddamn physically demanding. He was Air Force, for Christ's sake, which meant he was about the most physically fit specimen of the human body on the face of the planet, but even he had to work to keep up with Bruce. Bruce could keep going forever. 

For another, and here he was just being honest, as career military most of his sexual encounters had been of what you might call a brief nature. And by "brief," he meant shoved up against the men's room wall sucking furtive cock, and by "nature," he meant with some dude whose name he never did quite catch. So all night, in a bed, fully naked with another guy—that was not exactly his area of expertise. It shouldn't have surprised him that apparently, it was Bruce Wayne's. 

But whatever—it wasn't like he hadn't logged enough porn hours to know what to do. They had done nothing more than exchange blow jobs the night Bruce had shown up at his apartment and climbed into his bed. It hadn't been a knock on the door, either. It had been Batman hurtling through his window and probably scaring the shit out of the neighbors, not to mention himself. 

"I have a front door," he had pointed out, but there had been (of course) no response.

And it had been fucking electric. Bruce had found the lube in his bedside drawer. Bruce had led his fingers to that sweet clench of muscle, shown him what to do. Hal had been hard as a rock and aching for it when he had finally pushed inside—too fast, Bruce had gasped a little. 

"Sorry, I'm sorry," he had whispered.

The only answer had been a hand on his ass, pushing him further in, urging him on. He was inside Bruce and finding a rhythm and fighting back his own orgasm—he was going to make Bruce come, dammit—when he had realized Bruce had not pulled a condom out of the drawer, and he had not remembered to use one, maybe because his entire brain was in his dick right now? He had not thought he was one of those people who would ever have unprotected sex. Apparently he was one of those people.

Bruce had jerked himself while Hal fucked him. It had probably been workmanlike, not very interesting sex from Bruce's point of view, but it had been fucking amazing (or was that amazing fucking?) from Hal's. He had come inside Bruce in long shuddering groans. He had never come inside anyone before, man or woman, and it turned his spine to jelly and stung the back of his eyes, and his cock had emptied in huge hungry spurts. "Fuck, fuck yes," Bruce had panted through gritted teeth, and he had canted his ass up just that little bit more and the hand on his cock had moved just that little bit faster, and then the muscle around Hal's cock was tightening and Bruce was making this long moaning sound and painting Hal's sheets with his come. 

He put his armor back on in the dark, and Hal watched him. There was no good-bye kiss. There was no good-bye backward glance, in fact. There was just the open window, and Batman was gone. 

"Okay, so should I call you, or. . .?" Hal said to his ceiling, and laughed.

Turns out that was the day Superman and Wonder Woman had gone public with their relationship, and that shit had not been too difficult to figure out, not for someone who knew what to look for. It wasn't like he minded. He himself had had enough of longing for someone who was never going to feel the same thing back for him, but Bruce Wayne was probably enough of a masochist he had signed up for several more decades of it. But if Hal got some amazing sex out of it, he was not going to complain. 

Not that it changed anything out of bed, of course. Spooky was still as fucked-up as ever, still absolutely convinced he and he alone knew the right way to tell everybody their business, still just as much a douchebag as ever.

Only maybe not always. 

There came the day Oliver Queen decided to be an entire bag of dicks to him, insisting in a League meeting that he wasn't going to let little green fascists from outer space tell him how to manage things in his city, by which he meant he was going to ignore every suggestion Hal made about teaming up to take down the drug cartel whose wares were invading Star City. And it wasn't just Hal being an asshole, either, because those drugs weren't from anywhere on this planet. The cartel was being used as a front for merch from several galaxies over, and it was part of Hal's _job_ , dammit, to track that shit down. 

When he pointed that out, Oliver narrowed his eyes at him. "Look, Captain Napoleon. I don't need some dishonorable discharge fuck-up telling me how to run my city," he said. 

Hal was going to say something back, he truly was. He had the sharp retort lined up, but somehow it wouldn't make it out his lips. "Enough," Batman barked. "Stop making an idiot of yourself, Arrow." 

Hal was quiet the rest of the meeting, which moved quickly on. Afterwards he went to the showers, and opened his locker, but he just stood there for a long time staring inside it. He heard Bruce walk in, heard the small rustle that told him the cowl had been pushed back. It made him think of the first time Bruce had done that, in that first fight they had all been in together. _Okay, fine, you're hot_ , Hal had thought.

"You could get re-instated," came the quiet gravelly voice behind him.

"Yeah," he said.

"DADT is over. I understand they're re-instating everyone who was unjustly discharged. All you have to do is ask."

"I won't fucking ask," he said, with tight jaw. He hadn't meant it to sound like that. Forced his voice to sound normal, forced the casual shrug. "Besides, I make better money as a private test pilot. Fuck the Air Force." He slammed his locker shut. 

Bruce was leaning against the locker next to him, those eyes just watching him. The tightness in Hal's jaw was spreading up his face, somehow, and down into his throat. "Oliver Queen is an idiot," Bruce said. 

There was a hot knife in his chest. Why did it bother him so much? The DD didn't bother him. He didn't give a fuck. It was just hearing it tossed out like that. It was hearing it. He rubbed at his face, to try to loosen it. It was insane, but somehow all he wanted was to tip his head forward onto that ridiculous armored chest-plate, feel those gauntlets stroking his hair. How fucking pathetic was it that all he wanted to do was cry? He had never cried over what had happened, not one second. He rested his forehead against the chilled metal of the locker. 

"I wish we weren't here," he said. "On the Watchtower, I mean. I wish we could be back at my place." 

Bruce didn't say anything, and wasn't that a fucking newsflash. He just walked away. Because of course he did. Because of course he would. 

But then there was a sound at the door—the sound of the lock being slid home. And then Bruce was back and taking him in his arms. He let him. He let Bruce hold him. The armor felt cool and solid. "Stupid," he muttered. "Fucking stupid. Why the fuck should I care anyway?"

The arms gripping him just held him tighter. It felt like nothing could reach him inside the black wall of those arms. "I think," he said. "I think I would feel a lot better if I could just have a blow job."

"Now you're pushing it," Bruce growled, but he felt the whuff of Bruce's laugh, and it made the terrible tightness in his own face relax, that he could make Bruce laugh like that. Bruce released him, and they both leaned against the lockers and looked at each other. Smiling, or what passed for a smile on Bruce's face. 

Two days later, Oliver apologized. "Fuck, man," he said. "Sometimes my mouth gets in gear before my brain engages. I'm sorry, for what I said. You know, about the discharge. I didn't mean it. I didn't know the reason for it."

"Did some googling, did you," Hal said lightly, like it didn't bother him. No one had ever known about him, because it wasn't a big deal, and while he wasn't closeted, he wasn't advertising, either. Military habits were hard to break. He didn't need the League knowing his business. 

"Sure," Oliver said. "If by googling you mean Batman planting my face on the floor. Dude is fucking scary."

"That he is," Hal said.

"You wanna grab a brew with me? I'm heading home in a bit, know a great little place not too many people know about with microbrew that'll make you weep. Whaddaya say?"

Hal clenched his jaw. "Thanks for the obligatory overture. Now we all know you're cool with _those people_ , so just get out of here."

Oliver frowned. "Look, man. I might have said some things in the past that—the point is, I like military guys just fine. It's the system I have a problem with, not the soldiers."

Hal couldn't help but laugh. "Okay," he said. "Whatever. Sure, beer's on you."

"I never said _that_ ," Oliver protested. Hal just shook his head, still laughing. He was hanging out with way too many multi-billionaires these days, that was for sure. Fucking skinflints, all of them. 

He fell into bed that night in a warm beery haze. It was maybe more than a haze, because he didn't quite register when he became not alone in the bed. Bruce was stretched out of top of him kissing him before he was really aware he'd come in.

"You're drunk," Bruce said, pulling back and studying him. 

"Apparently. You mind?"

"Not really."

"Hey listen, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but you can't go beating the crap out of people who have a problem with me. For one thing, that's a full-time job."

"Apparently," Bruce said, in a dead mimic of his own voice.

"Asshole." 

"Mm," Bruce said. He was working on Hal's throat. He was naked. Hal was also naked. He didn't remember that happening. 

"You took my clothes off," he said.

"You took your clothes off, idiot. You were naked when I got here."

"Oh. Well, in that case." And he rolled them so they were side by side, which was his secret favorite position for kissing, despite the awkward arms thing. He pressed his naked body against Bruce's. Bruce was half-hard already. God, he loved Bruce's cock. "Hey," he said. "I really want you to fuck me."

Bruce studied him, like maybe he was trying to figure out just how drunk Hal was. Hal had never bottomed before. "I thought you didn't care for that."

"That's not true. Maybe I care for it a lot, I just don't know. Never had a chance to try."

"You never asked before."

"What's the matter, this not on the spreadsheet?"

"Smart ass," Bruce said, but there was warmth behind it, and something more. He had figured out some time ago that it turned Bruce on, the mouthier he got. And getting mouthy during sex? That made Bruce come like a fire hose. 

"Come on," he whispered. "Get those fingers in me. I want to feel you spreading me. Show me what that big cock's good for."

He could hear Bruce swallowing. Christ, he was hard now. Then there were blunt fingers at his hole, making little swirling motions. "Relax," murmured Bruce. 

_I'm trying, I'm just mentally calculating when was the last time I took a shit so nothing gross happens_ , he thought. But then there was a finger inside his body, and he gasped at it. "Jesus," he managed. They were still lying face to face, and Bruce brought his knee up so he'd have a little more room down there. The finger was moving in and out of him now, like fucking.

Hal was breathing hard, and he knew Bruce was watching his face. "I'm gonna use another finger now," he said. It was almost too much, and Hal gave a choking gasp. 

"Too thick," he said.

"My cock's thicker."

"Show-off."

The two fingers began fucking him, and he bit back the sting behind his eyes. Then the fingers were pressing up, and he knew what Bruce was doing, and—Jesus. Oh Jesus fuck. 

The fingers weren't making fucking motions any more, or just slightly. Mostly they were rubbing at his prostate, bumping at it, and Christ. He looked down at his own cock. It was red and swollen, a bead of pre-come on the head. "You're gonna make me come," he said. "I don't believe it. Just from that."

The fingers worked him harder, and Hal threw his head back. "Don't fucking stop," he moaned. "If you ever fucking stop I will fucking kill you."

He had no idea how many fingers were in him now. They were both looking at his cock like it was a curious thing. "Oh fucking fuck," he groaned. "It's coming, oh fuck—"

He splattered long strings of white on Bruce's chest. The come surged out of him like nothing he had felt before. He was watching his cock like it belonged to someone else. Bruce had just fucking milked him, without a hand on him. He convulsed again, shooting a last heavy spurt of come, and Bruce's hand was stilled. Like it was embracing him, from the inside. Surrounded by Bruce, inside and out. 

Slowly the fingers worked out of him. It felt like it had been a whole hand. Apparently that had been two fingers. Okay, maybe he did like this a lot. Bruce was back to working on his neck. "Can I, can I please," he was husking against Hal's skin.

"Of course, baby," he murmured, orgasm-drowsy. Bruce made some small noise in his throat—Hal couldn't tell what it was. Wow, he actually might be severely drunk. Bruce was moving to get behind him, now. Bruce's cock was sliding inside him now, no trouble, and Hal didn't care, Hal just relaxed. Bruce was making that same noise in his throat. His thrusts were short and fast, and after just about fifteen seconds he made a different noise—something loud, that sounded like it was being pulled from his toenails. Hal could feel the come, inside him. He had always wondered if maybe you could. 

"I'm sorry I'm drunk," he said.

Bruce was still shuddering against him. "I'm sorry I'm fucking you while you're drunk. I will apologize tomorrow, I promise."

For some reason this made Hal laugh inordinately. His chuckles shook the bed. "Hey," he said. "We didn't use a rubber."

Bruce froze. "I'm sorry," he said. "We didn't before, so I thought—I apologize. We can, if you want."

"No no, it's fine. I mean, I'm assuming you probably run your own bloodwork every week, you obsessive maniac. And I know I'm clean."

Bruce was sliding out. For some reason that was the most difficult part, and Hal gasped at it. Bruce rubbed his ass, in small circles. "Christ, you're big," Hal said. 

"I'm sorry," Bruce said again, and Hal rolled to face him. 

"I didn't mean that like it was a bad thing." He arranged Bruce's arms around him. "Sleep here," he said. 

"Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. I call little spoon." 

"Goddammit, Jordan." But Bruce's arms settled around him. Hal let himself drift into that gray land between sleep and drunk. He had no idea if Bruce was awake or asleep, he was so still behind him, and his arms so heavy.

He woke to a thudding headache, and a note on the bedside table. _Dinner tonight at my place_ , it read. There was a slashing, over-large _B_ at the bottom. B for Bruce, or B for Batman? Were they the same person? Beside the note was a handful of Advil and a glass of water. The last bits of ice were still floating on the top, so he hadn't left that long ago. Bruce had actually stayed the night. 

Hal considered the note. It didn't say, _Could you please come to dinner_ , or _Call me if you'd like to go to dinner_. Of course not. He reached for his cell phone and sent the text.

 _Thanks for the oh-so-polite invite_ , he wrote, and hit send.

He was in the shower when the reply came, so he didn't see it for a while. He smiled when he did. _Mr. Bruce Wayne would be honored to enjoy the pleasure of Captain Harold Winstead Jordan's company for dinner tonight, should he be so fortunate as to find Capt. Jordan available._

_I never told you my middle name_ , he wrote back. And I'm not Captain anymore, he considered writing, but then Bruce knew that better than anyone. 

_Yes, that was months of detective work._

_Really?_

_No. It's on your driver's license._

_When did you see my driver's license??_

_When I lifted your wallet._

_JFC, if you wanted money all you had to do was ask. After last night, you are 100% worth it._

He had fun imagining Bruce's face at that one. The next text took a few minutes, and he would bet anything Bruce was weighing and rejecting various responses. _1125 Bay Shore Drive, 6:30_ , was evidently what he settled on. 

Hal mapped the address. He googled a couple of pics of Wayne Manor. "Okay," he said. "Not bad." _The classy thing to do would be to send a car for me_ , he texted back.

_You can fly, what do you need with a car?_

_True, but using the ring for personal business is frowned upon. I'm a by-the-rules kind of guy._

This time the pause was even longer. He had time to go into the bathroom and shave and throw his clothes on before his phone binged the next time. _Lantern_ , it read, _this is a working dinner. I'm as concerned as you are about those drugs flooding Star City, and I suspect that's the thin end of the wedge for the whole East Coast. I thought we could spend the evening in the Batcave looking at maps of distribution and pinpointing hotspots._

Because of course. Wow, Hal Jordan's picture was in the dictionary next to "fucking retard" for ever thinking he could be about to have a normal human moment with Batman. He clicked his phone off, and then powered it down for good measure.

* * *

He showed up at the gates of Wayne Manor and pondered the possibility of some sort of aerial security net that would electrocute him if he tried to fly over, but the ring detected no lurking anomalies. With caution he descended a few feet from the front door — or what he guessed was the front door. It was certainly large and ornate enough, and that giant carved thing in the middle of it resembled a door, so he lifted the huge iron hammer-like knocker and let it crash down. Doorbells were clearly too bourgeois for this place. 

He knocked several times, louder each time, and was just about to try flying around to a side door, or a back one, if they had things like that, when he heard a creaking sound. The door opened, slowly, to nothingness.

"Hello?" he called, and then he looked down. There was someone standing in the door, after all—just a very small black-haired someone, with fierce black brows and a defiant glare.

"Jesus Christ," Hal said, "did they shrink you?"

"Green Lantern," the little boy said coolly. "Get away from the door dressed like that, you fool." 

"Hey I know who you are. You're the littlest ninja. How's school, Robin?" He let the door swing shut behind him, and it settled in its frame with the kind of echoing thud that in most horror movies signaled the moment the hero needed to be getting the hell out of there. He half expected the kid to say _Walk this way_. 

In the dim light he saw an expansive sweep of stairway about three cars could have driven down, swirling up to God knew where. There was gleaming parquet and Oriental rugs everywhere he looked. "I don't attend _school_ ," the little brat said, with a scowl. "I have private tutors. Father is in the kitchens."

"Okay. Got a roadmap for me, or a butler? Or do you guys always answer your own door?"

"Pennyworth has the evening off," he said, with an even narrower squint. He stalked off down some side corridor, into darkness. 

"Okay," Hal said again. "Sure. All right. Kitchens. As in, more than one?" He aimed more or less toward the back of the house, but there wasn't a single hallway, and he was soon lost. The place was more museum than house. There were endless rooms full of Gothic-looking furniture and probably priceless art, and he wandered for a bit, figuring he would arrive eventually. If a trap door didn't swallow him first. 

He stopped in a room, larger than the others, and with a view onto the grounds in back. But it wasn't the view that drew his attention, but the painting over the fireplace: a man and a woman. The woman was seated, and the man had his hand on her shoulder. A formal portrait pose, but the woman's face was. . . arresting. Familiar. He knew that face. The same black hair and high-cheekboned face with the same ice-lake eyes, but there was warmth lighting the face from within, and a gentle smile. He stood closer and studied her. 

"Beautiful," he murmured. 

"Yes, she was," said Bruce behind him. He was leaning in a doorway Hal hadn't even seen, in a black turtleneck and khakis, holding a glass of wine. "I take it Damian abandoned you."

"It was a mutually agreed separation."

"They generally are." Bruce was giving him a once-over. "You came like that to the front door?"

"Oh." He looked down at his Lantern uniform, trying to dim the faint green glow a bit. "Well. We are going to be working, after all."

Something strange happened on Bruce's face. "You thought I was serious?"

Hal stared at him. "You fucking douchenozzle." 

Bruce winced. "In retrospect, not. . . as amusing a joke as I had thought. Come on, let's get you something to drink." He turned and led Hal through a passageway he would never have found on his own. Hal took the opportunity to slip off his ring; thank God he was wearing something decent underneath, and not his flight suit. 

"What's your pleasure, white or red? Dinner is veal, but it can go either way." Bruce flicked on a few more lights in the kitchen. He could see why the kid had made it plural, because it was the size of a normal person's house, and there did seem to be several rooms of it: the business end of the kitchen, with more shiny stoves and ovens and burners than he'd ever seen anywhere, and a place with a huge arched fireplace his car could have parked in, and some leather chairs in front of it, and gleaming white pantries that stretched for miles beyond. Bruce was looking at him, and he realized there had been a question in there.

"Ah, red."

"Pinot, Merlot?"

"Got any Grenache?"

That got him a slow smile. "Indeed I do. In the cellar, though, so give me a second." And he disappeared through another door. 

Hal wandered around some of the kitchens, investigating what was cooking on one of the burners — and was that Bruce cooking something? Some onions, but they were cooking a bit fast, so he turned down the fire. He peeked in one of the ovens and found what looked like a tenderloin. He wandered over to the French doors that opened to the terrace, which was lit against the dark. He could make out most of the lawns beyond that. Lawns. Why did rich people have everything in the plural?

He had been in houses like this before, when Amber had a gig as a maid-for-hire. She was clean long enough to get hired by a service, and a lot of times he would go with her, because she didn't have anything else to do with him. He would sneak around in the vast high-ceilinged rooms and touch things, and whisper things to himself, imagining he lived there and was telling the servants to fetch his dressing gown, to draw his bath, to bring him caviar. He didn't know what caviar was, but it had been in a magazine story he had read, and it sounded expensive.

Of course, that gig hadn't lasted long. Amber had gotten fired, and he remembered her rage and indignation— _they think I stole something from one of them gotdam houses, I ain't stole nothing, they always think it's me, I'm always the one that gets blamed everywhere I go_. He had been so mad on her behalf, so filled with helpless fury that anyone would think his mother was a thief. Of course, she probably had stolen something. 

He leaned against the door onto the terrace and looked at the statuary surrounding it. He hadn't thought about that memory for years. Amber had probably been so happy he had believed her, because it meant somebody in the world did. It would be several more years before he had realized that she would never tell the truth, that she would never really be clean, that she would never be able to take care of either of them. So he cleaned the puke off her on bad nights, and made sure he got himself to school and fed himself breakfast, and lied when he made friends who wanted to come to his house. Not that there was a house. Most of the time after he was ten, they had couch-surfed. Wouldn't Amber shit her sorry self to see him now. 

"1983," Bruce said. "Domaine de Mourchon. Not the best vintage, but I couldn't find the one I was looking for. Alfred would know."

"It's fine," he said, still looking out at the warm lights illumining puddles of stone and manicured grass. 

"You hate it," Bruce said, and Hal turned a startled face to him.

"What? No I don't. I don't know anything about it, I'm sure it's fine." Bruce walked over and handed him a glass, and together they looked out the windows.

"I meant the house," Bruce said. "You hate the house."

Hal examined the purple depths of his excellent wine. "It's probably the most beautiful house I've ever been in," he said. 

"Neatly evaded," Bruce said, watching him over the rim of his wineglass. 

"It's just. . . not where I come from. But it is beautiful."

They drank in silence. _Not where I come from_ was another neat evasion on his part, and one he knew Bruce could probably read. Hell, Bruce probably knew the details anyway, being the detective. He was pretty sure no one else did. He was pretty sure everyone else just assumed he was raised middle class, like everybody except Bruce and Oliver. Just another kid from the 'burbs. Like Barry. Barry had never pressed him. Not too long ago, he would have been infuriated to think about Bruce's detective skills being exercised on him, on his life, on his background. Now, it was kind of nice not to have to spell things out.

"Come on," Bruce said. "I'll take you on a tour."

He followed Bruce through the lofty rooms, re-tracing some of his steps, finding new rooms elsewhere. He stopped to examine the art most frequently, and Bruce was able to tell him all about it, as well as who had collected it and when. The Asian pieces and Chinese vases, that was his mother; the Baroque canvases and 18th century miniatures, his father and grandfather.

"What do you collect?" Hal asked, bending to peer at a case of Greek manuscripts in the library.

"Criminals."

"Fair enough." 

A tall dark-haired boy stuck his head in. "Hey Bruce? I'm gonna head over to Dick's for a while. He's got a new system in and wants some help running a few cross-diagnostics. You need anything while I'm out? Lantern," he said, noticing Hal. "Hi." 

"Hi," he said, because he had not a fucking clue who this kid was. 

"Tim," Bruce said, as the boy's shaggy head disappeared. "Be careful, the roads are icing up out there. The cycle's probably a bad idea."

"'Kay, I'll take the car. Are you offering yours?"

"No," Bruce said, and the kid grinned.

"Just checking." He ducked out again, and Hal watched him go. It was funny how they all moved in the same way, the same controlled glide of motion, like stalking panthers. 

"Red Robin," Bruce supplied, when he had gone. 

"Wait. Him? That kid? That was Red Robin, seriously?" 

"That was Red Robin."

Dick was Nightwing, he knew that much. And Bruce had called the little ninja spawn Damian, so that was. . . pretty much everybody? He felt like he was still probably missing several of them. It was weird, he had known intellectually that Bruce had a family, but seeing the reality of it, that was different. He ran a finger over the intricate carving on the mantel pillar, feeling the slick warm patina of it. 

"Come on," Bruce said. "My house is depressing the hell out of you. And don't tell me anymore that it's beautiful. I know it's beautiful."

"No, it's. . . I don't know. Is it weird, living in the same place your parents and grandparents and great-grandparents did? I mean, all that connectedness—come on, sometimes it's gotta get creepy. Although what do I know." He didn't have any very clear idea who his father even was, Amber had made up so many differing stories. And by the time he had been old enough to go looking, the trail had long gone cold. Even Amber's parents he had never met. They were the source of an occasional check, a money wire now and then. Bruce was looking at him again like he was seeing more than Hal wanted him to see. 

"Sometimes," he said. "Sometimes there's a lot to be said for a lack of connectedness. The possibility of re-inventing yourself." They headed back to the kitchens and Hal watched Bruce cook down some peppers and chop some rosemary, but most of the heavy lifting was already done. Hal sipped his wine, which only got more excellent, and watched Bruce work.

"It was only half a joke," Bruce said. "About a working dinner. I do want to talk about whatever it is Arrow's dealing with. If we can get our hands on a sample, do you think your ring would be able to trace it?"

"It's possible. Though if the main ingredients are common enough. . ."

"Right, it would be a dead end, because there's a million possible sources."

"I'm guessing you do actually have those distribution maps in the Batcave. Do I get a tour of that too?"

"Of course. And if you—" His cell buzzed, and he glanced at it. "This is Commissioner Gordon," he said. "Batman has to take that."

"Sure. Go on, I'll be fine." 

"Gordon," Bruce said, his voice barely changing register. He was ducking into a side room, a little alcove off the pantry. Hal wandered to the giant fireplace and watched it for a while, then when it was clear Bruce was not coming back soon, decided to go exploring on his own. With some navigational skill he managed to find his way back to the front hall, and the enormous staircase. 

There was no way, with a staircase like that, you wouldn't rig up a sled at some point in your life and toboggan the hell out of that thing. Ten bucks said Bruce had a Rosebud somewhere around here, stashed in a closet for when no one was looking. He went up the stairs to investigate, just a little. The hallways on the second floor were quiet—some doors open, others shut. 

"I bet you anything there's a rose under glass in one of these rooms," he muttered. He pushed open a few doors, just an inch or so. He didn't go in or anything, but he was curious. Bedrooms, most of them — unused, by the look of them. There was another staircase to his left, and he tried that one. The third floor, a bit lower-ceilinged than the one below, looked more lived-in, and there was even music coming from one of the doors. He pushed it open tentatively.

The tiny angry ninja was sitting at a desk, scowling at some papers and an open textbook. The music was coming from his earbuds, one of which had slipped out. He was chewing his pencil and looking murderous. Hal stepped back, but the motion had caught the sharp-eyed creature's attention. He jerked his earbud out.

"Lantern," he said. "What do you want?"

"Just looking around."

"Hmph. Don't touch anything. And we have an excellent security system, so we'll know if you try to take anything."

"Yeah, I'll try to restrain myself. Whatcha working on?" 

"Why do you care?"

"Because it looks like math. I like math."

Damian made another noise that sounded like a hissing scorpion. "That figures," he said. "Of all disciplines, maths is surely the most useless. It requires no creativity, no imagination, no ingenuity or intelligence at all."

"Really. Well, I'll be sure to call up Einstein and let him know. You sure are an opinionated little son of a bitch, aren't you?"

The black brows unfurled in astonishment. "You just swore."

"Yeah. Sorry. I tend to do that. Not used to being around kids." He wandered over and lifted the curtain, just to see what kind of a view the kid had from this room. "Nice pad," he said, looking around. "All this space yours?"

"Of course it is."

"I would have killed to have this when I was your age. Maybe not killed, but I definitely would have maimed. I was kind of a delinquent."

"A delinquent who liked maths?" The brows arched skeptically. 

"Yeah, well, the math part came later. What do you like instead of math?"

The black eyes shifted. "Anything."

"Yeah, but what in particular?"

"Art," he said. "But that's—that isn't. . . common knowledge."

"Meaning, don't tell Dad. Got it. I suck at art. Couldn't draw my own ass with a xerox machine. That was a joke, by the way."

"It was a terrible one."

"You have your own game system?" He stood incredulous over the state of the art system just released, the one he was saving up for. 

"Of course I do, I'm not a peasant."

"Wow, you're a charmer, huh." He flicked the paper of Damian's scrawlings up and investigated. "This is a mess."

"Give that back."

"In a minute. You want to fix it?"

"I have no interest in it one way or the other."

"Yeah, but I bet your math teacher does. Do you like him?"

There was the barest hesitation. "Her." 

"Hot or not?"

"She's. . . not unpleasant to look at." 

"Oh yeah? Well, how about we impress her a little bit? I bet she'd love to think she's actually getting somewhere with you. Come on, these mistakes are easy to fix. Look. You just missed this step here, see? You do this. . . and this. . . and look, now you're on the right track. It's not that you're doing anything wrong, you're just moving too fast and missing things. You're not actually bad at this stuff."

"Hmph," Damian said, but he could see the little hellion watching what he was doing carefully from under his lashes. Hal pulled up a chair. 

"Come on," he said. "Let's knock the rest of these out. Quadratic equations, that's my jam." He got him started on the next few, and watched his hesitating steps through the second part. The kid was obviously clever as hell, but if something got his back up, his stubbornness was going to get in his way. 

"You got it," he said, as Damian tackled the last one. "Look at that."

"I wish I could find the inventor of the quadratic equation and make that _khawal_ suffer a thousand deaths."

Hal tapped the pencil against the desk. "Don't use that word," he said, and the boy snorted.

"You know Arabic?"

"I was military. I know faggot in just about every language under the sun, and some half a dozen that aren't."

"It's just an expression."

"It's an expression you shouldn't use. You wouldn't want a gay person to hear you saying that, would you?"

Another snort. "I don't know any _khawalat_."

 _Nice job, Bruce_ , he thought. But he remembered hearing something about the kid—that he had been raised by his mom for most of his life. Still. "Yes, you do," he said. "I'm one, for instance."

The black brows this time were a single line of consternation, and he reared all the way back. "Impossible," he declared. "You're the Green Lantern."

"Ah, yeah. You think there's a sexuality test for a ring? Come on. Being gay has zero to do with anything else about me. And it's the same for every other gay person. Look." He took the pencil out of the kid's hands and slammed it on the desk. "Pick it up with your left hand," he instructed.

"All right."

"Now finish your homework like that."

"I can't," he said with contempt. "I'm right-handed."

"Exactly. That's what being gay is like. You can't control it—sure as hell would have made my life easier if I could have. But it's got just about as much meaning for my life as being right- or left-handed does. It's just a genetic thing, like anything else."

Damian chewed on the pencil. "Hmph," he said again, but thoughtfully. "All right," he said. 

"Come on, last problem."

"There's no a! It can't be done, this problem is defective."

"No, it's not. The a is 1, but you don't usually write a 1 before an x — it's understood. X squared is the same as saying 1 x squared."

"Then that's what they should say," he grumbled. Hal caught a twitch of motion at the door, and turned to see Bruce silently leaning against the doorframe, watching them, his wineglass in hand. His face was wearing some expression Hal had never seen before—the lines around his mouth softened, somehow, as he watched them, but his eyes even deeper and more inscrutable.

Damian caught the flick of Hal's eyes and turned around. "Father," he cried. "Did you know the Green Lantern is gay?"

"I did, in fact. But that's personal information, and not something you should share with people."

"Whyever not? I thought it was like being left-handed?"

"Well. . . yes and no," Hal tried. "It's—a little different in some respects."

"Different how?"

"Well," Hal started, with a quick desperate look at Bruce. "Ahh. . ."

"What he means is, it's time for his dinner, and time for you to finish your homework."

Damian sighed. "Fine."

"Hey, you finish that, maybe you'll let me play with your sweet new system over there."

"Maybe. If we don't have patrol tonight." He shot a questioning look at his father. 

"No patrol tonight. Lantern and I have work to do."

"Al-Khwarizmi," Hal said, with a clap on the thin but sturdy shoulders. "That's the dude you have it out for. The guy who came up with the solution to the quadratic equation. An Arab, by the way."

"Well of course he was an Arab. Everything worth anything in civilization was invented by an Arab."

"Ah hah, I just made you admit algebra was worth something."

Damian shot him a narrow look, and Hal grinned back and shut the door before he could send a book or something sharper hurtling his direction. Bruce was waiting in the hall. "Sorry," Hal said. "I shouldn't have gone snooping. But your phone call was taking a while and—"

Bruce's grip on his wrist was iron, and Hal was being yanked into a side hallway (how many intersecting corridors did this place have anyway?) and hurled against a wall. "Wow," Hal said. "You're either really really pissed right now, or really really not."

"Take a guess," Bruce said. The kiss, when it came, was shockingly gentle. Bruce's hand was on his face. His hands were wrapped around Bruce. It was almost tender, if any kiss from Bruce's mouth could be said to be tender. 

"What the hell are we even doing," Hal said.

"I have no idea," Bruce said. He notched his hips against Hal's. "How hungry are you, actually?"

"Why, because you burned my dinner?"

"Dinner's fine. I just really want to fuck you."

This was probably the longest time they had spent kissing, all told. Bruce was good at it, but then, so was he. After a while he got tired of being the damsel up against the wall and pushed Bruce against the opposite wall. He was tilting Bruce's jaw up, angling in deeper, when he felt his cell buzzing against his thigh. For a second he thought maybe it was Bruce's again. 

"Gonna get that?"

"No." He dove back into Bruce's mouth. The buzzing stopped, and then resumed. "Goddammit. Hang on. Yes," he said into the phone, more viciously than he had planned. "Kind of in the middle of something, Bar."

"Sorry. Are we not gonna watch the game tonight?" He heard the crunch of chips, the crumple of a bag. Shit. He had completely forgotten. 

"Sorry. I—something came up. I forgot to call. Listen, can we—why don't you Tivo it, and we'll watch it tomorrow?"

"Well, I've got a meeting after work tomorrow, and then Iris and I were gonna go over to her folks."

"Okay, well. . ." Bruce was not nearly as polite as he was about phone calls. Bruce was still making out with his neck. He was also pretty much grinding against him. It was making it a little hard to wrap up the phone call. "Um—can we—listen, I'm gonna need to call you—unnnh, back—"

"Are you okay? Hal? Are you there?"

He let the phone drop to the floor and wrapped his arms back around Bruce. Bruce was setting a rhythm of push and grind and rub that was about four seconds from getting him off. "Fuck, you did that on purpose," he gasped. 

"Of course I did." The voice was about three registers lower than usual, and it made Hal's balls contract.

"God, you make me so hard," Hal moaned. "Come on, get me off." And he clutched at Bruce's perfect ass, pulling him in closer. His dick was aching, and he didn't care if it meant coming in his pants, it was going to happen now.

"No," Bruce said. "Come on." And unbelievably, the bastard was pulling away. "Follow me."

"You've got to be kidding me." But he was back in Spooky mode, evidently, because he had slipped into the shadows, and Hal had work to keep up with him. Down one more hallway, and through another set of wide doors, and then. . .

"Whoa," Hal said. 

Bruce's bedroom was palatial, but not in the sense Damian's was. This was larger, but more restrained. A sitting area around a crackling fireplace, a tasteful bed, high windows opening onto a stone balcony. Behind those doors was probably a bathroom like something out of a luxury spa. "I'm guessing this room sees a lot of action," Hal said, because of all the idiotic things to say. Jesus.

"You're guessing wrong," Bruce said tersely. "I have a penthouse for that sort of thing. This is my home."

"Oh," Hal said, because apparently following up the world's worst possible mood-killing remark with an awkward silence was his specialty. Bruce was doing something at a cabinet over in the corner, and did he seriously have a liquor cabinet in his bedroom? Hal wondered about that glass of wine he had abandoned somewhere. Kind of a pity, since he suspected that the wine was probably the price of a small car. Maybe even a large one. 

"I don't really need a drink," he said.

"I do."

Bruce had two fingers of scotch on the rocks. Hal watched him swirl it thoughtfully, then knock half of it back. "What, you need a drink before we can fuck?"

"I don't need a drink for fucking," Bruce said, setting down his glass. He sat on the sofa and looked expectantly at Hal. 

"Ooo-kay," he said, and sat down beside Bruce. "Mind if I ask what the fuck are we sitting on the sofa for? Is this your standard suave seduction scene? The drink, the fire, the comfy sofa. . . I just want to make sure I know my lines."

"Why do you keep assuming I have frequent sexual encounters? There are more direct ways to call me a whore, if you want."

"Christ," he said, because that word knocked the wind right out of him. "That wasn't what I meant, Jesus effing Christ. Bruce. If anyone's a whore—" He clenched his jaw tight. "Believe me, there are things about me you'd rather not know."

"Why do you assume I don't know them?"

Hal turned to look at him then, stretched in the corner of the sofa. The firelight (and boy, that was sure a sign of a house with staff, wasn't it, that you could walk into a room where the fire was already lit) burnished the planes of his face and darkened his eyes, picking up flecks of lighter color in his hair. He looked relaxed, if you didn't know what to look for. Also if you ignored the giant tent in his trousers, which apparently he was. Hal was a bit disappointed to see that the sex portion of the evening's entertainment was being delayed so they could stare moodily at the fire together.

"This is a lovely fire," Hal said.

"Yes."

"Nice room, too."

"It is."

"My erection is also very nice, and beginning to get very insistent. Oh look there, you've got a matching one. Bruce, what the fuck are you sitting over there for?"

"I'm thinking."

"Oh good. This will be fun then."

"I'm thinking that I don't really want to fuck you tonight."

It didn't feel like a smack across the face so much as a six-inch knife in the gut. He was angriest of all at himself, because now it wasn't possible to lie to himself any more about how much he wanted this—how much he was wanting Bruce to want him, and how important that was to him. Any second now he was going to find the right thing to say back, and it would be a good one. Any second now. "Oh," was his utterly pathetic response. "That. . ."

"Please," Bruce said, catching his wrist. Bruce was pulling him toward him, moving next to him on the sofa. There was a hand caressing the side of his face. There were eyes like frozen lakes looking at him like eyes didn't look at him. "I'd rather make love. That was my meaning."

"I don't know how to do that," Hal said.

"Neither do I."

"This making love thing. It still involves getting off, right? I mean, at some point tonight, I am going to come, yes? Because I just want to check."

Bruce got up and tugged Hal with him. That was more like it. He took him over to the bed with him. Bruce was kissing him, softer than in the hallway. He was kissing Bruce back. "What the fuck are we doing," he whispered, again.

"I told you, I don't know."

"You're a liar."

"Then so are you," Bruce whispered back, and caught his lips with his teeth. "God, get these clothes off, how the hell are you so beautiful."

"Same to you," Hal said, fumbling at the buttons of his shirt. "Jesus, I want you to fuck me like you did last night, can we just do that again."

"I was an ass," Bruce said. "I can do better than that, let me do better than that." Bruce was nuzzling at his neck. Wow, Bruce had a thing for necks. Maybe the vampire thing was still a possibility. Maybe Bruce had brought him here so he could sink his teeth into him and drink his blood while he fucked him, drained him of come and blood and everything in him, and Hal knew he would let him, he totally would. 

"What are you thinking about," Bruce said in his ear.

"About how maybe you really are a vampire."

Bruce pulled off. "That again?"

"No, it was getting me kinda hot." 

"Just kind of?" A hand reached for his balls, and squeezed. Bruce slipped a hand into the waistband of his shorts and gripped his cock. "More than just kind of, I think."

"Fuck, Bruce, I'm gonna come. Just—" And he pushed them back, collapsing them onto the bed, and Bruce was working the rest of their clothes off. "Not that this whole making love scenario isn't kind of awesome, but right now I really just need to come my brains out, and I don't really care if that's with your cock in me or up against me, I just need to fuck, you know, and I—" He broke off with a choking sound when Bruce gripped his hips and pushed up against him. 

"Fuck, I gotta—" He bit his lip and just rode Bruce, just humped him. They were mostly naked now anyway. Bruce's hands had moved back to his ass, and were gripping him there. A finger brushed at his hole, and he spread his legs for it. "Yeah, come on," he muttered. 

Bruce stretched over for the bedside table and pulled out a little tube. Hal rubbed up against him. "I don't want to come on your fingers again. I'll come if you do that, I just need—fuck, can't you—"

"I'll hurt you," Bruce said softly. Way too much in control for Hal's taste, so he bent down and swallowed his cock whole. Bruce arched up and grunted and the lube slipped out of his fingers. 

"This whole making love thing," Hal said, taking a break because sucking Bruce's cock was kind of a work-out. "It sounds great and all, but fucking is really more what we do. You get me so hot I can't stop coming, I just want to come all the time all over top of you, want to watch you come and taste your spunk. So let's just do that, okay?" And he sealed his mouth back around Bruce's cock, and Bruce started thrusting up—nope, he put a stop to that with a firm hand—and he was pretty sure Bruce would agree to whatever he wanted to do if he would just keep licking his fat cock like that. 

"You like this," Hal said, tonguing a dribble of pre-come. "Man, do you ever like to fuck. You can tell them whatever you want, Clark and Diana and whoever else. You can be the big noble hero, but I know what you really want, and I know how much you like to fuck, so let's just do what we do best, yeah?" Bruce pushed him back down, hard, with a hand on his head, and Hal obediently swallowed cock again.

When he had had enough he climbed up on top of Bruce. Bruce was slicking a finger, Bruce was pushing it inside him. "Don't come," he said.

"Oh, Jesus, why the fuck not," Hal panted, because that finger felt too good working him, he could totally spray come just from the feel of that finger. "Oh fuck fuck fuck," he groaned. "Come on, come on, fuck me, just get in me."

"Hal, that's not—"

"Shut up, just get the fuck in me," Hal said, shifting so he was right over Bruce's cock. "Come on, come on let's do this," and he slowly lowered himself, while Bruce kept a hand on his cock, bracing. He gasped, tried to still the shaking in his arms.

"Hal, no."

"Come on, it's fine, just—oh," he said, as the thick blunt head slipped all the way in, as Bruce pushed up at the same time, and oh—oh Jesus. Bruce was making small thrusting motions. Something about being on top made it seem like it was going in deeper, and he tried to remember what he had done last night, what had made it work then.

"No, no, hell no," Bruce said, pulling out quickly, and Hal gasped again. Bruce rolled them to the side and quickly maneuvered them like they were last night, with his arms wrapped around Hal. 

"I'm not hurting you so I can get off," Bruce murmured in his ear. "That's the one thing we're not doing, ever. We can try anything else you want in bed. But not that, I can't do that."

"Yeah, okay, sorry," Hal said, but Bruce's mouth was on his, erasing anything else. 

In the end they just got off using hands, their legs twined and pushing at each other in some pretty awkward teenage-style humping, but hearing Bruce groan when he came made it all worth it. "I should have said yes to that drink," Hal said, his head resting on Bruce's chest afterward and looking at the ceiling. "Probably would have made the fucking part work better." He was trying to remember the name for that kind of ceiling. Something in an art history textbook somewhere. 

Bruce was. . . playing with his hair, was the only word. There was a finger twiddling with his cowlick. "Mm," was all he said, and Hal smiled. Bruce always took a while to come down from afterglow. That was one of the great things to remember, when Batman was swooping around and beating the shit out of people and generally being a freaky-ass ninja.

"Coffered," Hal said. "That's the word."

Bruce lifted his head an inch or so to squint at him. "What?"

"The name for—never mind. Am I ever gonna get my dinner, or was that all for show?"

"No." Bruce stretched. "I can bring it up here, if you want. I bet I could find one of those wheeled carts Alfred likes to use for breakfast." 

"Okay," Hal said, but neither of them moved. "So you know my middle name," he said, after a bit.

The hand in his hair stilled, then moved to stroking. It was weird, to be petted like that. He should probably object. He would in a minute. "Yes," Bruce said.

"Bet even all your detective skills couldn't find out where it came from."

"No," Bruce said. 

"It was from some book Amber was reading. One of those trashy romance novels, but the ones that are a little bit smuttier than the Harlequins. She used to love those. Lord Harold Winstead, was the hero of the one she was reading. She liked the name. So she gave it to me, how sad is that."

The hand didn't stop its motion. "Amber is your mother," he said.

"Yep." He didn't volunteer more, and Bruce didn't ask. 

"So it's a fake, is my point," Hal continued. "It's a joke."

"It's your real name, it's not a fake."

"Hmm," Hal said. He thought about before, when Barry had called him. It occurred to him he had abandoned his phone on the floor of an upstairs hall of Wayne Manor. It was sixty percent possible Barry was still on the other end of the phone, saying _hello? hello? Hal?_ Bruce had kept making out with him on purpose. Part of Bruce had wanted Barry to know what was going on.

He rolled over onto his elbows and loomed over Bruce, studying him, the sex-soft lines of his face. 

"Do you love Clark," he said, before he knew his mouth was going to say anything. Shit, shit, oh shit. Why had his mouth done that? Why could his mouth never stop fucking up a perfectly good thing? Maybe Bruce would pretend not to hear him, or pretend not to understand what he meant. 

"That's not the question you want to ask." Bruce folded his arms behind his head. 

"Fine. Do you love me?"

"Yes."

Hal stared down at him, incredulous. Bruce looked unperturbed. "Jesus Christ," he said. "You can't just say shit like that."

"You asked. It's all right, you love me too."

"I—you don't get to say that!"

"Is it untrue?"

"No," Hal said, and suddenly the last six months of his life made a hell of a lot more sense. "But you still don't get to be the one to say it _for_ me."

"All right. I apologize. Have at it."

"I. . . that is. . . I mean. . . you and me. . ." He sighed, defeated. "What you said." 

Bruce's laugh was long and warm and maybe the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. "Shut up," Hal said, straddling him. "Shut up, I'm gonna tell you a thing. I'm going to tell you why. You want to know why? Because Clark is a good person. And Barry, he's a good person. Maybe the best person I've ever known, the best there is. And you. . . you are really not a good person, are you."

Bruce arched a brow at him. "Hang on, wait," Hal said. "Because I'll tell you something else, neither am I. You told me once we were alike, and I didn't believe you. But we'll never be like the good people, you and me—we'll never be the ones who do all the right things for all the right reasons. We might do the right thing, but it will be for the wrong reasons. And we'll fuck up when we do it, and we'll get shit wrong. We're not those people."

Bruce's finger was stroking a line up his arm. "You talk a lot," he said. 

"Yeah," Hal said. "It's a little meta, I'll grant you. It could just be that we like to fuck."

He settled back into the curve of Bruce's arms and contemplated what exactly he was going to have to do to finally get his dinner, and what sort of tax in blowjobs there was likely to be for that.

**Author's Note:**

> This is 90% New 52 compliant, arising straight out of Justice League: Origins. I didn't feel impelled to write it, though, until I saw Justice League: War, which really dials up the Batman/Green Lantern interaction — in fact, that's the slashiest, most bromantic relationship in the whole movie, hands-down. I went jonesing for some good Hal/Bruce after that, and didn't find much, so here you go: the product of my fevered imagination, and my love for some good old-fashioned "let's just have sex and ignore the fact we're falling in love" action, which is maybe my favorite Cheesy Romance Trope.


End file.
